HTC One X Smartphone Reviews and Deals

HTC One X review

Good

Stunning display; fast processor; great design and build quality

Bad

Battery life is poor; no microSD slot; large size may be awkward

Overview

The One X is HTC’s new flagship superphone, leading the charge of its One range against the all-conquering Samsung and Apple, and as HTC’s new top of the range device it is, naturally, packing some cutting edge hardware.

Powering the phone is a quad core NVIDIA Tegra3 processor, which has previously only been seen in the Asus Transformer Prime tablet. Backed up by 1GB RAM this should equate to a huge performance lead for the HTC handset, though battery life may be a concern.

The handset design is a major step up from the HTC models of last year where the numerous Desire and Sensation models had begun to blur into one another and there was little to make any of them stand out against the competition. The One X sports a distinctive new look made with polycarbonate, and is very light and thin, though with a 4.7-inch display it is not the most compact handset.

Out of the box the One X comes with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich with HTC’s own Sense UI sat on top. It’s typical for manufacturers to utilise their own software front end rather than leaving the generic Android OS, and Sense is the best of what is admittedly a pretty bad bunch. It’s slick, fast and good looking and HTC chucks in a whole load of extra software and useful tweaks.

This is a big phone however. If you’re used to the 3-something inches of an iPhone or older HTC handsets the One X can feel awkward. It’s not quite as monstrous as the Samsung Note but still requires two hands for most operations, so one-handed texting while walking down the street is out of the question unless you’ve got big paws. On a positive note it is surprisingly thin and not heavy at all, and the smooth casing is built from a material which looks and feels far superior to the forthcoming Samsung Galaxy S3.

Work

Thanks to the seamless integration with Google’s ecosystem Android phones can be hugely useful for work purposes. Calendar and contacts sync up with Gmail and Google Calendar, which is not only handy for restoring the phone after a wipe but makes it really easy to manage details via a computer by simply logging into your Google account. If you’re not keen on trusting everything to Google, it also includes the standard Android Mail app which supports Exchange and standard POP3/IMAP servers as well as Yahoo and Hotmail.

HTC’s own Sense enhancements add some extras that professionals may appreciate. The lock screen can be customised to show various types of information, which can include calendar appointments and stocks data, as well as HTC’s Friendstream app which integrates multiple social network feeds.

Play

The One X camera is a standard issue 8-megapixel sensor, but it offers a seriously low start-up time that sees the cam ready for action almost instantly, and the software is stuffed with extra features including burst shot mode with best photo selection, smile detection and a range of Instagram-esque effects. You can also snap images while recording video, or grab still frames from recorded footage. This adds up to a camera that is fun and easy to use, but we’re disappointed that there is no hardware shutter button and slightly concerned by the protruding lens cover on the rear of the phone, as it rests on this when laid flat and could quickly gather scratches.

This model can also take advantage of some games made specifically for the Tegra3 processor, which really show off the capabilities of the hardware.

As a portable entertainment device the One X is tough to beat, not only can it offer gaming performance that’s not a million miles away from home consoles but the big 16:9 display is amazing for watching movies. It is also fitted with Beats audio technology like all recent HTC handsets, but we’ve never been especially impressed by this extra. To our untrained ears the music sounds much the same as it does on any other phone or MP3 player, it seems to be more a marketing gimmick than anything else. The bundled Music app is great though, it integrates with other tools such as TuneIn Radio and SoundHound and features a very useful lock screen widget.

Connectivity

The usual suspects here: HSDPA mobile broadband, A-GPS, Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi. No great surprise. The microUSB port is used for both data transfer and charging with either the bundled adapter plug or by connecting it to a USB port for slower trickle charging. As an Android phone data transfer is incredibly straightforward. No irritating proprietery software is needed, files can be copied with good old fashioned drag 'n' drop.

The only major omission is a microSD slot, and that’s a biggie. The phone comes with 32GB of internal memory but it’s not hard to fill that up once you’ve loaded on apps, recorded video and taken a ton of photos. The 23GB of free Dropbox storage HTC offers is not an alternative to user-expandable memory.

Performance and battery

Its beautiful 4.7-inch screen is immediately striking and one of the phone’s best features. The bright LCD technology is vibrant and, thanks to a resolution of 1280x720, incredibly sharp. In fact, it is possibly the best smartphone display we’ve ever seen, superior even to the iPhone 4S. And thanks to the 1.5GHz quad core CPU this is an incredibly quick mobile phone, loading and running even the most demanding of apps with barely a pause.

So no complaints about how the One X performs...but the big screen and fast processor quickly reveal a major issue. While NVIDIA has claimed that its Tegra3 was designed to be energy efficient by switching to a fifth low power core when its full capabilities were not required, there’s no evidence that this is having any impact on the One X as battery life can be truly abysmal.

With typical usage - web browsing, navigation, movies and games and general fiddling about with the settings - the phone was completely run down by early evening from a full charge at 9 the same morning. It’ll go for two days if you’re very careful, but this means leaving it on standby almost the entire time.

Verdict

The HTC One X is a lovely bit of hardware with an amazing display and excellent performance, a great comeback for HTC, but any potential owners will have to decide if they can deal with the weak battery life. It’ll need juice every day so you’ll have to make sure you bring the charger along even if you’re only away from home for one night. We’re also not too happy with it lacking a microSD port as it’s far too limiting, but again that will be up to you to decide. If the ability to add extra storage is essential then look elsewhere.  

HTC One X specification and features

Model

HTC One X

Manufacturer

HTC

Operating system

Android

Colours

Black, white

Mobile internet

WiFi

Yes

3G

Yes

HSDPA

Yes

Size

Size

134mm x 70mm x 9mm

Weight

130g

Features

Touchscreen

Yes

QWERTY keyboard

No

Camera

8 megapixel

Video

Yes

GPS

Yes

Bluetooth

Yes

Music Phone

No

FM Radio

Yes

Quad Band

Yes

Video featuring HTC One X

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